Botticelli became closely identified with the court of the Medici and gave fullest visual expression to its ethos—one of the reasons the art he created seemed "passé" after the Medici lost their grip on power and were expelled from the city. It was one of the painter's less enviable tasks, even if handsomely rewarded at the time, to do a fresco in Florence's city hall of the hanged bodies of the Pazzi conspirators after their failed attempt to wipe out the leaders of the Medici clan in 1478. (The work was destroyed in 1494 when the Medici were banished.)

According to the press materials, "the exhibition proposes over 60 works [complete list] from all over the world," only some of which were in the Botticelli exhibit at the Luxembourg.